The city of Chicago is working together to draw the tech talent essential to fuel a herd of quickly expanding unicorns.
The city of Chicago is working together to draw the tech talent essential to fuel a herd of quickly expanding unicorns. Nine have already been identified recently. An entire region of established businesses advancing their digital transformation, like Allstate and Caterpillar.
You might want to find out if there is a shortage of software engineers if you are looking to hire software developers for your new project. With labor market uncertainties, Gaper.io can be at your service to provide great developers throughout Chicago. Statistics suggest that demand for software engineers, QA analysts, and testers is expected to increase by 22% between 2020 and 2030, which is far faster than the average for all jobs. Chicago startups are therefore expected to generate more demand in the coming years which may not be met with the right amount of supply.
Two years back, Chicago set out to bring back 10,000 tech professionals that had left the city under its Come Back to Move Forward marketing campaign. The city will open more prospects for career advancement and employmen and attract people from a diverse pool of backgrounds to expand opportunities. The Come Back to Move Forward campaign is also a component of P33, and Chicago’s long-term strategy to redesign talent recruitment initiatives in order to address the persistent difficulties in creating a diverse, tech-ready workforce.
The first things that come to mind when you think of Chicago are usually its architecture, baseball, deep dish pizza, or jazz music. Chicago is now a burgeoning technological hub where leading corporations and cutting-edge startups are embracing the future of technology.
It may not have the same longevity or allure as the Windy City, but “Silicon Prairie” is a fitting nickname for Chicago. Giant tech companies, ground-breaking startups, and a vibrant tech scene all call the city home. Not to mention the big businesses, the thriving restaurant and hospitality industry, and the sports organizations because everyone now needs to hire a developer.
Chicago is way more affordable than other tech hubs, yet there are plenty of opportunities in the tech world, not only with huge corporations, but also with plenty of startups. Chicago ranks eighth in net tech employment, behind New York City and San Francisco, and is one of the biggest employers in the country.
Gaper.io’s aim is to ensure that tech startups in Chicago have a constant and seamless access to a marketplace of vetted software engineer and developer talent.
Silicon Valley attracts techies, New York hire tech talent to attract big money, Chicago attracts business titans.
According to TECHicago, the Windy City is home to over 6,150 IT businesses, and over 375 startups have been formed just in the last five years. In addition, the city now boasts the greatest proportion of women-owned startups (34%), globally.
Chicago presents possibilities for businesspeople and investors to reinvest their human and financial resources back into Chicago’s startup ecosystem to develop the next big thing.
However, in trying times when investors are beginning to become more and more conservative and very high valuations are becoming a thing of the past, fund raising in Chicago might take a hit too. During these uncertain times, it is important that startups in Chicago create sustainable workflows and strategies that won’t betray them should an unpredictable shock hit.
If you are having trouble hiring developers in Chicago, set up a quick meeting with us to start putting together a tech team within the next 48 hours.
Chicago is home to some amazing established and upcoming businesses. If you would like to feature your business/startup from Chicago with us, drop us a message on LinkedIn!
Gaper is an AI-powered marketplace of software engineers that specializes in connecting businesses with software engineers. Engineers can be hired in as quick as two days with a two-week free trial.
Gaper.io has gained a reputation as a reliable source of top-tier software engineers from across the world. This has helped various Chicago tech companies grow by providing them with access to a large pool of skilled engineers. With Gaper.io, companies can find the software developer and engineer talent they need to take their businesses to the next level, regardless of their location.
Named #1 on Chicago Tribune’s Top Workplaces list for 2018, Salesforce, the Customer Success Platform and world’s #1 CRM, is a cloud computing company–the fastest growing of the top 10 software enterprises, in fact. The San Francisco-based software company is significantly expanding their regional headquarters in Chicago with a new riverfront skyscraper, bringing at least 1,000 additional jobs to town over the next five years. Just imagine your new office view!
And they give back, too–Salesforce has granted more than $1 million to support education and workforce development programs in Chicago, and Salesforce employees will volunteer 40,000 hours in Chicago next year alone. Leading nations where Salesforce developers may find work in 2023 include the United States, India, Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom, and Singapore.
Improvement in supply chain management is the goal of nearly every organization involved in transportation and logistics, and none is having as large of an influence as project44, Inc. Simply put, their mission is to provide freight shippers with a smarter end-to-end shipping experience. They must be doing something right because they recently bought GateHouse Logistics and formed a partnership with J.B. Hunt. The company was recently valued at about $500 million, and with a beautiful new headquarters that can accommodate up to 250 employees (and they’re currently at just over 100), now is the time to invest!
GrubHub, the nation’s top mobile and online meal delivery service, is committed to linking hungry diners with nearby takeaway establishments. In 2018, the company ranked #13 on Fortune’s list of the 100 fastest-growing public companies in the nation, ahead of Netflix (#19), and only behind internet giants Facebook (#6) and Amazon (#9). This Chicago-based digital startup has more than 14 million active diners and about 80,000 restaurant partners in more than 1,600 cities throughout the US and the UK. With 2,125 employees as of February 2018, about half of them were in Chicago, Grubhub is expanding.
Every publication is looking for ways to develop stories that will have a deep level of engagement and attract more readers—it’s been that way forever. But Hearken is here to make that a reality with the “public-powered journalism.” That means listening to the public as a story goes from pitch to publications. The highly customizable platform ranges from allowing the public to submit questions for journalists to investigate to keeping a centralized Engagement Management System to hold all the key data and insights. The company launched in 2015 and has remained fairly small, but we’re bullish on them blowing up soon.
Sprout Social is a software company that helps businesses manage their social presence from one central platform. The company’s social media management software solutions streamline and enhance a brand’s social media communication with their customers, employees, prospects, and community. Sprout Social has been headquartered in Chicago since 2016, where most of its 400 employees work, although they have team members across 25 cities worldwide. This year, the Chicago Tribune named it a Top Midsize Workplace for the fourth year in a row.
ShipBob, a tech-enabled 3PL with a global fulfillment network spanning the US, Canada, and Europe, was founded in 2014 and provides straightforward, quick, and economical fulfillment for thousands of firms. The proprietary solution of ShipBob integrates warehouse management, predictive data analytics, order and inventory management, as well as optimal delivery for e-commerce businesses. The business has already raised $130.5 million in investment, and it recently topped Crain’s Chicago’s list of the 10 fastest-growing businesses for 2020.
One would anticipate that more years of expertise would instantly translate into higher salaries for software developers. Of course, in reality, things differ a little. For example, at the same degree of experience, certain coding jobs get paid more. Gaper’s marketplace is also host to engineers and developers at different levels of seniority whichin turn means that each of their hourly rates vary.
According to statistics compiled by Indeed from more than 30,000 participants, the average annual salary of a software engineer in the US is $108,423, with earnings ranging based on years of employment.
Average annual pay for software engineers with less than a year of experience is $101,312.
The median salary for 2021 was about $99,680, with an annual bonus of $4,000.bonus. This wage study is based on salary survey information gathered from anonymous employees and employers in Chicago, Illinois.
As of Mar 7, 2023, the average Chicago computer engineer makes $85,121. For a simple pay calculator, that’s $40.92 an hour. $1,636/week or $7,093/month. A computer software engineer can expect to make between $85,754 and $152,188 per year on average.
There may be many prospects for progression and increased compensation based on skill level, location, and years of experience, given that the typical salary range for a Computer Engineer is quite broad (up to $41,057).
Usually a bachelor’s degree in Computer Science of Software Engineering is required to enter the tech field. However, thanks to the vast resources available online, one can start from scratch and learn coding for dummies, or they can pick up from whatever prior knowledge base they have.
We also have guides on the following:
…and many more. If there is a guide that you would like to read in particular, drop us a message and we’ll get to it immediately!
Why should you hire remote developers in 2023?
One of the most compelling arguments for hiring remote developers is that it reduces office expenses. There are a variety of overhead expenses that must be incurred when employing office staff. When you employ remote developers, you only need to pay them their salaries.
There are many advantages of distributed teams especially since they are often more productive and efficient than in-house ones.
If you are a startup from Chicago that needs to create a sustainable way of working, hiring and growth hacking, make sure you look into software development partnerships before deciding to go through the entire process of hiring and vetting on your own.
There are a lot of platforms out there that help businesses hire remote developers. Take a look at our guide to hiring remote developers, and decide which one addresses your needs the best.
Gaper.io is, in general, a great resource for companies in 2023 to hire remote software developers especially given the looming possibility of yet another recession. Hire a vetted engineer for your business now!
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